


puyo oneshots

by pachinkovv



Category: Puyo Puyo (Video Games)
Genre: A little, Gen, Humor, M/M, Mostly Gen, One Shot Collection, Worldbuilding, and more dumb shit, ayashii gets drunk and makes klug watch the simpsons with him, don't ask how i got these ideas, feli fights klug in a waffle house, ghosts do crimes, klug goes to his local hot topic, ringo shares mixtapes, sig accidentally shoots a hole through the wall w/ magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 17,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26899693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pachinkovv/pseuds/pachinkovv
Summary: you know me. going crazy going stupid in the docs again
Relationships: Klug/Ayashii, Klug/Sig (Puyo Puyo), impliedd
Kudos: 9





	1. drunklug

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i actually had no idea where i was going with this

Klug knows this is out of his league, but he made a serum out of spiced honey and cloudberries, and hocus-pocused the effects artificially to withstand the user under influence for 24 hours. Otherwise, a day. And for even less than that, Klug leaves the refrigerator unattended and Ayashii downs the bottle in full.  
That was meant to serve the likes of someone sick, like a painkiller. But in Klug's time and day they were healing potions he needed his hiking luggage for. Around when he made the serum, without Aya's knowing, he agreed to switch bodies and share the freedom of taking care of - and being - another living thing.

The Record of Sealing was in his room, with Klug temporarily his soul bounded to it, when Ayashii crossed the room in three, slow gaits. Rubbing a hand over his pant leg almost in the efforts to set it on fire. He was swelling red with the serum. His lips curling a smile almost too welcoming it prompted a noise out of Klug.  
"What happened? To the serum?" he urged.

Ayashii flew a hand to the back of his neck and let it slip to his waist. He was physically straining trying to say 'rehabilitative'.  
"Reunion," he added. When he tried again, he repeated himself smartly on the same mistake.  
"I'm doing some fun for me."

"Do you know how much you drank? When was the last time you looked in the mirror?

"Klug," he cut in, "Don't try to tell me what's good for me I know me myself it'll - it's, uh, fine."

Klug breaks off, coming to the idea he should be there to talk him out of it, leave the record upstairs for a time, and lock the doors. Keep him out of harm's way so before long Ayashii would have his head in the right place by morning. Instead, mentions both his rationale and, driven close to tears, the sweat he put into concocting that thing. If Ayashii could hear him out he pretends not to and closes distance with the book.

When Klug asks what he's doing, this time he can really hear what stresses he put on not crying. And in immediate effect, he laughs. And gives Klug a harder time to stop himself.

"What? What do you want? I said I worked hard on it - you want to laugh at me?" he cried, " No, keep laughing, Aya. At least I don't stoop low enough to live in your book!"

He hears Ayashii beat his chest in mock sympathy.  
"You're not further from th' truth. Klug, at least I (- dragging out the I to a sing-song) don't have fff... Your stupid f-uck-ing hair cut."

Klug cries again, painfully realizing how much he is subjugated to the blow.  
"Not true! Take that back, Aya!"

"Please," he said, but quiet so Ayashii doesn't bother to ask him again.

Aya swings a finger, saying something like, "Nnh, come here," and stumbles behind the door with the record in his arms. As he keeps plans to himself, Klug threatens to bite him, forgetting the ability, but insists that one way or another he will hurt him. Aya continues to carry him downstairs and in the kitchen leaves him a place on the kitchen counter, to turn the TV on. Klug, suddenly, changes his mind, when he sees him walk off, that Aya can keep the book where he likes but in the vicinity. (So as to keep him company but shshs)

Then, Aya comes back to the kitchen and hides in the cover of their pantry to look for wine and untouched bread in the fridge. Ayashii doesn't leave. He instead leaves the book in front of him pouring out wine into a shot glass, cutting bread, and going through at least ten drastically polar expressions watching the Simpsons with Klug. Klug laughs, cries and sweats with him. He can't see another way out of this than to endure and strike later with questions.

He's never even watched an episode of the Simpsons until today. Klug doesn't know what he's doing is known otherwise as bonding if he falls short of the friends to spend that time with.

Then, Aya eventually goes very still in a part coming that was supposed to be the hook and sinker to a joke. Not that Klug remembers it in full but he was laughing his wits off anyway. Surprising himself, he laughed harder, and looks over to Ayashii for his input. Not unlike him, he was fast asleep in a chair at the table.

So, Klug, out of his body and starting to go out of his mind, waits for him to wake up.

Until then he sings to kill time. A dumb, lilting song he picked up as a kid. In anapest rhythm, making the words up as he goes on. He sung about a classic folk tale that when in Primp, on every thousandth day, the meteor showers are at their best. Rumored for having branched from the Sun in pieces to fall over the sky, the Sun's Stars they were called. In the stark dead of night, with morning dawned to stars, still her heart as it pains not to know how they are. For a thousand withstanded, of days long a-grip, so the sun riddles, giving way, her tears slip. And pieces of them are so to steal fire. If what singed her crown, she stings in elements higher.

(ew oh god haha take this last minute verse ok)

When Klug hears a voice couple his, he quiets down to hear.  
"Sing me to sleep... darling... in cover 'f the Earth,"  
Aya was tapering into a weak snore. After a pause, he starts talking again, singing and goes at random intervals, "dominance hierarchy" and "diameter in- a- sun ring". Klug doesn't bother to piece it together. Or so he doesn't see a reason to.

But Ayashii wakes in a start and from asking him, assumes no memory of the songs. His arms fold behind his head as he leans back, then forward over the desk. He looks ready to ask something.

He, instead, works them into a conversation talking about the show and Bert eating pant. Why it wouldn't be so bad if he ate pant, if it's just the one leg. Better yet, the pant leg itself and not what goes on pants because it would've been far more excusable to eat fabric than bite someone else's leg. Aya goes on to talk about the Krump and wants to issue he won't reenact it and neither will Klug - ever - when he gets his body back. Otherwise they both try and do the scene justice.  
Klug asks if he's okay.

"I'm okay," he says. His hands fall at his sides again, and for some time he cushions his face against the table. Later to stand up and walk over his half-empty wine bottle, peering into its prismatic reflection under the ceiling light. He does half of his brooding there. And admitting, after a pause, that it's weird he can register human touch, the feeling, and everyday operations just like he used to. (The change in subject just catches up to Klug for how stupid it was before.)  
He talks about how happy he is that Klug shares a body with him when he doesn't deserve it. Whispering - how he doesn't know why he runs on such bad, bad luck.

Ayashii stood with his back turned to the record. Until his shoulders shook Klug didn't notice he was crying.

Klug urges it's not his fault. He will get the host right for him. He further leans over the counter, and sinks his face into his arms.  
"I love you," he admitted, but with 'man' for a suffix to overlook the gesture. Like a "god I love you, man" he didn't teach him as much as the Simpsons did.

Klug, steaming, feels it physically come off his soul.  
He views the whole experience since last night to be a dive in his catharsis.  
"I love you too," he said, "Man."

Ayashii, without lifting his head, feels around for the book to touch Klug, and suddenly draws back working his face in pain. Klug roused anger, blamed for being so hot that it hurts.  
He wants to thank him but is afraid he's going to feel it when Aya strangles the tail-end of his spirit.

And at one point, they call it a day after streaming the same show lost its taste. By morning of tomorrow, Klug was back as himself, only that Aya timed their switch-out before his morning hangover. Here, Aya was having the time of his life even from not being where he can see it.


	2. raffina races against time

The morning Raffina missed her alarm, she woke up to her routine with her back turned on the time, and the clock in the kitchen, sure enough this was another day she would be headed for school and later that day her practice. It didn't help she was doing favors for everyone after what little time she had for the rest in her day's work. Raffina slept later and, evidently, woke up an hour later with no swing in energy.

She fit her stockings, a foot against the frame of her bed, the skirt and on her way out, touching a pin to her hair. She looks out her window over when yellow flashed in streaks. But already peeking over her shoulder for the time. In immediate effect, she throws her foot down, and catches it on the corner of the bed. So as her bus is passing, at the loudest point it's engines could have mustered, they interrupted Raffina's threatening.

Strange to say, she couldn't shake the thrill, of the idea that, maybe, if she runs fast enough she can catch up to the bus that way. She had room in few minutes only to agree, arguing with herself would mean the bus is too far out of reach for a fair race.

Raffina heaves a sigh. She rubs the most of her palm over her ankle and is quick to leave for the bus. Throwing what she could in as little a mess into her handbag (she thought better than to run with luggage on her shoulders).

She takes a right, a second left, and was tracing the route before telling where the bus was at the moment. From 250 days of working her memory on the way and back.

Here, as the bus reaches a stop not far from Raffina's house, someone has a chance to make out her figure and wave the rest in seeing it for themselves. When Raffina noticed her classmates pile at the single most openly-windowed door, Amitie being at the front, and she waved. But with both arms risen it looked like a sign for help. Amitie along with everyone else were moving to signal something to her, even turning their backs to talk to each other. They must have soon noticed with Raffina because by the time she reached the next stop, they were just as far away and going on to turn a corner.

Raffina decides to marker the race from now until the school, and was really considering it. She was going to run the full 2 miles if it pours her in sweat. Otherwise she would have done her facial today.

So far, the instep lines with her opposite foot as Raffina keeps in pace. With every eighth of a mile she doesn't strain to catch up to it and that much closer to the bus. Going uninterrupted, she was thinking, she can easily overcome the bus. But morning times were synonymous with traffic almost any day and season. She wouldn't test her luck.

Still, when Raffina delves in the sights around her it's hard to turn away. She was honest she kept pace but her footwork starts to fall in line the more she took in her surroundings. To the measure of a heartbeat at rest, if not slower.

The houses are cut under angular roofs, their brick walls seeming to compromise the house in smaller parts with an addition of driveways and backyards.  
Empty lamp posts and flower beds accessorize these houses as to give them even stronger resemblance to toys. Whatever the dawning light could touch, half of it reflected off windows and the head of cars. Raffina even had to hide her face passing a cream cougar, with its glass panes beaming so forward at her.

When they see her again, everyone is cheering her on, moreso Klug losing his mind.  
They watch her steal a kid's free bike and yell at them that she promises to put it back where she found it afterward.

Just before the street reaches an outlet,  
(Oh hey guys how does it feel to come back to a prompt I was letting fall flat after months because it feels p good okay let's try this)

she passes a few houses she knows belonging to her classmates. The newspapers bound in rubber bands rolling to the end of the driveway an hour ago. That she edges close to and picks up to throw toward their doors. Inevitably they land closer to the side lawn or even the next house over but that wouldn't stop the bus from coming together in a mass of applause.

Raffina deliberately avoids Klug's residence when she catches him at a side window throwing hands to what must've been his home, and laughs into her hand. She instead bikes it down the streets on a sidewalk to the right of the bus. Soon, refocused and careful of the spiking pavement in her way.

When she reaches even grounds, she can look around if not ahead of her for another quarter of a mile. The bus, now no closer than it was five minutes ago.

She decided to look up at a glance for the makeup of clouds and sun rings in the sky today. At another glance, seeing there's a plane falling straight from the sky almost in vertical trajection. It couldn't scare her enough. But whether it's pilot knew what they were doing or not, they still put on a good show. The plane was sinking close to the sun, almost touching it before it fell. Raffina would go as far as to say the plane was falling from the sun. It gave her a reminder sharp enough to ping in her ears. Only when a truck passed her did she come to her senses.

Throughout the sidewalk path, the sun is flitting in the heads of trees, coming to peek from roofs and taller trees to bake cracks further into the ground. The neighborhood she was was starting to reach was composed of deeper cracks than the sun was capable of leaving and overgrown trees. A few branches dip out of place before one really stands in the way.

Amitie followed the front windows just in time to see what it was and pulled the window down to report, the rest soon to follow in the seats and rolled down windows next to her.

Even outside of checking the bus she can tell they have their eyes on her.

Considering her time is little and in that frame she has to decide between a full frontal collision or veer rubber wheels into grass, she believes in that same respect that there is little to lose here too. But if she were to dodge the bicycle into something other than concrete it would only lose her time. Fuck okay Raffina could own a dirt bike if you introduced the sport to her in a week from now you can just see her on her musty dirty scummy dirt bike passing tricks like no other if magic meant anything at this point now Raffina can assuredly stomp it into shreds and by it I mean Klug's stupid graduating cap where does he get that he's still a little bab in school where did he get that hat from the basement layer of his school or something it makes almost no sense before you consider his character so

Raffina takes another look around to remember the sights and speeds up. Everyone is underway a riot.

And she does it, she leans back enough to bike through the tree without steering off track. Only as so to graze her chin and keep going. A crowd is brought to life in the magic school bus - it's a big time fucking show.

Then the bus is behind a line of a number of cars and stuck in a red light.  
Raffina presses the button to cross to get ahead of them. In the meantime, waving to her classmates as she puts to use distancing herself from early traffic.

When the bus catches up fairly quickly she is just about finished crossing for the last time before she is edging to the school gates with her peers.

The head of the school, a single puyo showing off its color in the sun like a gem), is starting to peak over storefronts and buildings by now.

She makes it behind them in less than a minute, and follows a sidewalk path up until the front doors  
Having been slowed down earlier (she can run over a stick but not someone's magic prop).

When she gets there everyone prides her, giving away offerings they measured in the number of water bottles and lunch money they have to offer. Everyone rushed out of the bus as soon as possible to see Raffina briefly in the same light she sees herself in all the time.

Before anything she is being traded refreshments collectibles in her efforts to run with the bus.  
Raffina sits against the wall seeing this as good a chance as any to cool off and Amitie lifts and arm to claim this her victory as they collectively have a laugh.


	3. rei doing an asshole justice

Yu shares her input on robbery. If she were to rob, she said, it would've been better spent with her brother's jointed efforts. And totally out of harm's way if two ghosts are doing it. So that in their given time, it looks to have taken minutes before Rei is lead on to steal someone's money. She argues that since they're dead they don't need to suffer criminal charges anyway.

"How are they going to catch us? Are they going to cuff the air, Rei? Salt and pepper our rooms?" she laughed.

Rei says she makes a good point. But only was it in a week that he carries this through. He decides to steal only if it means someone is going to learn a lesson from it.

Yu tells him to let loose but doesn't insist her reasons. As earlier, she tried teaching him the art. Rei turns her down, convinced he knows how to steal as much as the everyman. And only plans to steal alone, for sure knowing he doesn't need say why.

Rei, then, decides he's going to steal from Klug because he's an insufferable brat who brags too much. If he talks unrestrained around everyone involved and can't figure out for himself why they gravitate to anyone else, it was only going to hurt him sooner than later. Yu on more than one occasion called him Reiman. At least Rei thought he was doing what's best.

In a week from now, Rei camps out and waits. Checking honestly if Yu was following him or not when he asked for no interference, and realizes he's alone.

He finds Klug easy, nerding out in the book store that closes on Sundays and shares the smell of the bakery close by, having a hunch he was there. But only meeting him after a day and two nights. Before then, he would have to kill time, and look over books if there was nothing else to do. In the meantime he haunts the store. Or not so much haunts but pile famous titles on the top of a bookshelf to read. He drifted a closed off perimeter of the store for the longest time until thinking about how to make his time worth. Now and then, thinking it would be a lot more fun with Yu here.

But Klug eventually does come on the second day. He at first follows Klug around the store. Believing that this is the way this goes; he walks around the first shelves you see when you walk in, and works his way to the back of the store looking for Kuromanga, if not add to his list. Klug so far oblivious.

At the back of the store he stands in front of a PuyoBoy collection as Rei tails behind him. He stands for longer than he does peruse like he might've seen a ghost or something, the temperature hitting him squarely in the face. Rei has never felt the pain of suppressing a laugh before until today.

Now, since passing the shock, he puts his cap down, where a wallet is. With Rei in the meanwhile peeking over his shoulder as he finds a magazine befit his taste and thumbs it over. Repeating himself for a long, dragged-out 20 minutes. But for as dedicated as Rei was to steal from him he wasn't going to make fun of his guilty pleasures.

On Klug filtering through the magazines long enough, produces a stack, like fucking four of them, in his hands, he turns around to get his cap. There being no wallet. And a heavy panic waves over him, more from him caught in the act than a criminal one at place.

Rei can start to guess that Klug thinks he misplaced his wallet if it was easier to blame himself than what he couldn't brace for. He starts, then, checking frantically, retraces his steps and everything. His second best guess was Klug thinks someone stole it off of him but no one was behind him to start (Klug was talking himself in a frenzy where Rei could hear him, for accuracy).

As he waited for him, Rei is behind a shelf counting heavy checks. He has enough to buy out the whole of the store.

Suddenly, what stole his attention, was a second pair of hands over the wallet as they passed through Rei.

Klug (later) finds him, he said, having caught him by the ghost tail if he could. He also said how much it belabors the point of being a ghost if he can still grab his fucking wallet and come back here I need you to tell me how long you've been watching behind my back please.

Rei was teething a smile.  
"Long enough."

Klug fuming, isn't sure if he's more upset getting pickpocketed or the idea of Rei telling him off to everyone to consent in signing his death permit. This is when Rei takes advantage of his energy and runs behind the shelves for Klug to chase him.

Soon enough he starts apologizing as he's following Rei throughout the store without Rei having to make a note of anything. As he brings them to the same wall of magazines as before, however, he takes a break.

"Do you know why I stole this?'

Klug comes to a stop after a corner, and waits to figure out an answer.

"You... Because you're a burglar, why else? Why are you asking me?"

"I'm not," he said.  
"But what happened here makes you one as of now."

"Okay, sure. Guess again."

"You're on the short end of your stick, so, you might need the money to help someone?" Klug mumbled.

"I don't need the money for anything, actually. Ghosts don't have living expenses and I could have read all the books in this store three times over in the time I've been dead."

"Then, what's the deal?"

"From what I know," he started, "you're a brat. You put yourself on as high a pedestal as you can, or at least ahead of everyone else's. And even if there's nothing I can do to stop you, you should be able to tell the difference between pampering yourself and advancement. You should know of all people that it's driving them away and not drawing them closer, if that's what you wanted. Going out of your way to work your defenses is still losing your respectability."

Klug loses the fire, he goes quiet.

Rei, drifting closer to his height, leaves the wallet on a table stacked with best seller's books.

"I really don't want your money but I hope you can take something away from this."

For a while, Klug delves in thought. He surprised even himself that he didn't have the vigor to yell at him. The last time he allowed someone to talk back in show of their authority, was the spirit in his little red book.  
Klug, again, doesn't move as he watches Rei float out. His tail for two legs walks through an open door on its closing. When he regains a sense of time, he pockets his wallet, taking it out again to see that it was there, and is slow to count how much he has, if it's enough to buy what he wanted. The ghost really kept to his word and left his wallet untouched.

From hereon, Klug walks home in the quiet. And when he was paces away from the front door, doesn't find it in him to step inside. The bags fall at his sides, with Klug facing away from the door so he can watch a light flitting across the clouds. He watches the sun track over the sky for an excuse to think to himself.


	4. pimp town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wtf have i done

Ringo was in the company of everyone she knew Amitie knew attending the Primp school. There were a handful of them, enough to fill 20 of the 30 seats in class. She worked her fingers into the flaps of a box, sitting on the seat of the fountain as they were affixed to what her hand clutches at in the box in near, pitched silence.

Ringo pulls a cheeky grin, and immediately reveals a pair of discs slotted in the first of her three fingers. The group breaks into praise.

"These are mixtapes," she told them.  
"Songs recorded on discs to give out in the streets, like, barter - no, wait-"  
She corrects herself, saying mixtapes are sold, sold to the fans or an audience.

"How much a price?" someone was asking.

Ringo tapped the discs over her chin in thought.  
"I would bench these $5. Depends on how good they are."

To steal $5, $10 out of a passerby's wallet and consent was how Primp kids are going to drive the states into war. At the time, this means they could buy all the hot chocolate and collectibles they want. And as the group was smart to catch on, their questions mingled more to a point where she couldn't distinguish individual voices. Her hand came over her head to hush them.

She called out to the only other student who was cross-legged on the grass and waiting.

"Yeah, Lidelle?"

"How do we know if a mixtape is good?" she stammered.

"Easy- but I'll come back to it later. The rap is another question in itself," she said, and dipping a free hand into the box again started to shuffle for the item. An aux cord tangled in her grip on showing them.

She didn't think about bringing the cable to start, if in modern Primp cars were still a luxury and portable games weren't associated with Tamagotchi pets. But there was always the lure in that she tries.

When Ringo figured all too late in discussion that she can't trust any of them to drive yet, she hides the aux cord and the object of their focus shifts onto a ringlet of golden chains.

Setting these beside her, Ringo digs the box for a display of stunner shades, caps, and slang printed in grunge lettering on t-shirts.

She walks them over the arcs they, or anyone, has yet to face in their rap career. That to distinguish yourself in the competitive field, rappers project an image of their person at its core. And are faced with how they shoulder finesse, so as to not crack under the pressure.

Ringo listed a rapper's attributes they could've used to consider. But the styling choice was in their hands, she insisted them.

Rappers, on that note, develop their craft overtime, as any artist, with set vigor to give it their all. They're musicians in a derivative of the common arts, somehow dumbing it down to look even more common than it already is.

Ringo said, and only if she really did curb their enthusiasm, that if any one had the hopes to try, they needed to record the backdrop of their song in advance, digitally.

Little did she know, then, over half the group stood on their heels in protest that they be rappers from hereon out. And Ringo, staring over them, couldn't help but laugh through her teeth. She would cycle the rest of the day to explain how laptops and music software worked. Dawning twilight before she had a chance to pack her things and leave the chiseled slab pearling, wet under the fountain spout even still.

And over the course of a week, she was interrupted by everyone that came back to her one by one, asking she bought their mixtapes.

Amitie noticed she was lying half-awake in sun, or what little of it was exposed over the slanted roofs of Sephei Cafe. Bracing a couple steps and took her by an arm. To the school, she was gushing, something happened, like a riot broke out, and that she needed to see for herself.

When she did, and the door flew open in front of them Amitie jumped in place next to Ringo, who made no sudden moves to walk in.

"I'm Amitie with a 3," she mentioned. Ringo's shoulders rolled flat as she found it harder to turn away from the group.

Klug sported the chains she didn't remember if he asked to borrow, winking under the ceiling lights every time his arms came over his chest and swung down. He was gesticulating gang signs she made sure to avoid in discussion and if anyone had the liability, they'd have known he was doing them all wrong. His dress shirt, bare, and where he normally cuffed the wrist he showed a repeating theme of gold.

He voiced something to Sig, who propped a knee over one of the desks and listened. Sig, in silver blues at the belt of his pants, was open to improv after Klug, and instead fished his pockets to lie his phone on the desk facing up. He started to play hard EDM, leaned over his knee, and was singing.

Rapping, actually, Ringo thought. This wasn't shit close to singing. She couldn't believe she heard "You know who it is, Big Boy Siggy" come as an extension to Sig's vocabulary now before she taught them slang.

It was either Amitie, who rushed into the room to take sides, or Raffina, but Sig's mixtape was being overridden by another song. And Ringo saw Lidelle beat box and snapping her fingers over a table.

Ringo never felt more scared for her life.


	5. thanks, doc

An office and service delegated to cross lovers ran under Risukuma's name. Only today he's liable coming to terms with his clients by mail and not every one in person.

After leaving his mail so far untouched in the kitchen, he treats himself to a morning shower, starch-black coffee and, bringing cheap milk packets to the counter, he starts to read them over in the order they were shuffled and stacked. The first letter reads from someone undoubtedly new to those like Ris and the work associated.

"Hey Love Doctor,

Would you happen to know how to up my game? I'm going to make sure I'm at my highest prowess but I think without directions I'll be getting nowhere. I think there's more to it than dance that satiates mere and men (-the word men was smudged on contact of being written on and erased. The client instead says they meant to write women). Can always work on my dancing any day. I'm just wondering if there's any other charm to take into consideraytion.

Thanks Doc,

[name redacted]."

Ris was about a few sentences into the second letter, when he all of a sudden folds the paper in half and pockets it. He's misplaced Maguro's writing him with what he was happy to call love letters. As he would address a fishing trip stealing him for the weekend, and wanted to keep in touch: 'Hey Ris! I want to know how those contacts are going. I'm on a fishing trip in time for its seasonal debut so I won't be back until next week. Count me on coming back with some big ones!'.

He picked the following letter, open with an exaggeration of the stars in minute detail and peppering the sheet.

"Dear Love Doctor,

I am encouraged by the drive of fate that I write to you. It is on matters of love, as I have the answer foretold to me time and time again and still run away, shy of carrying it through. What can I do to speak my feelings as clear-cut as possible? Is there anything of sustenance that would guarantee required love?...

My thanks,

[name redacted]."

And for the next page and ongoing, this client reassured Ris she knows what she's talking about - with the stars and the moons and marked, open sky. Not that he doubts any of it but he makes a note to pick up on it later.

"Hi,

So if I'm going to send a gift to someone, like a live pet, know any place that sells small ribbons? I mean ribbons you can tie around a twig or something. A finger. How about, like a store with all sizes of ribbons. Is there even a ribbon that small I swear I've seen it before. I don't know why when there's big ribbons people find it enough reason to stop there. I hope they didn't. But the color I didn't mention. You have something like a purple? I don't care what shade just stay out of jelly grape purple that looks tacky even to me. Anyway...

Cinseerly,

[name redacted]."

Ris pockets this letter too. He was thinking about sending it back to him and explaining himself but he's not sure if it would be better instead to shut him up and mail ribbons with his note. Then the client realizes they meant to say bows and throughout the letter writes bows over every ribbon.

"Greetings, Love Doctor,

I give myself in. I'm in complete arrest by the stupid names I'm being called. [name redacted] says this happens out of my impended speech, if I really mean what I say. Which I do! I confound it, I do, on my life! Everyone I meet is ward off because I sound dirty, right? But they never tell me just what it is I'm messing up. If I could tell you, I've about reached my climax with these people. Still, as much as it pains me, that's why I came to your services. Tell me what I can do to fix some if not all faults in my speech. I am indebted to you.

My warm regards,  
[name redacted]."

In scrawled squirrel-bear handwriting, Ris notes to send this guy a copy of the Oxford Dictionary and never again have to relive a day of his experiences in letter-form. And his next one reads:

"Dearest Doctor,

Me and my honey, [name redacted], are off in our honeymoon weeks away from today! I bought us a two-ticket trip to the cruise around these still-life waterfalls (forgot the name, she says). They're immersive beyond anything I've seen in magazines, even when I seized the means to purchase them from an ad in the margins. So, anyway, I trust you have advice on flirting? If anyone, I figured it was you, the Love Doctor, who should know. I'm looking for the best, unparalleled techniques. Something I should pay over the counter for how select they are. What I'm capable of is ground-level and old, if you have anything to say about it. But I wanted my darling [name redacted] to be in my hands of a spell. Please write as soon as you can. The cruise is in under two weeks for us as of now!

Love,  
[name redacted].

After this, Risukuma's back is turned on the letters. He likes their energy but he stops reading fifteen paragraphs in of a client doting her sweet darling. He's read about their encounters in fifteen set scenarios before they even took off to the cruise. Deciding a walk was all for the better.  
He needs a break from what sliver of their lives he saw into.


	6. sudden death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> requested by uboatan on tumblr

They are in Waffle House, in the Waffle House allusive to a weekend morning standing over the stove that works away your pancake grub into beaten, bubbling discs. The doors are closed but for one propped by the sole of someone's shoe coming in. Lemres knows he shouldn't delve on something menial, and stare on when he's picked on another detail like it was a still-life, but he knew why.

He was in the company of two other magic-users, the names of which he should have imprinted into his memory by now, they shared looks, and a reoccurring theme in spitting on each other's graves. Neither of them budge, they don't answer to threat, but avoid glancing this over to formidably socialize. And he wouldn't want to shoulder the blame of talking it out with the two. Lemres would rather admit he was scared than fight the stifled air between them.

But luck was in his favor, not too long and they went to staring down their menus, preoccupied in their own business when Lemres decided to try conversation.

"Do you guys know anything about pachinkos? Our town just brought them in to a new arcade and everyone's jumping on it."

Granted, he doesn't say they were imbued in magic, or for the improvement of focus in real-time battles, but Lemres was waiting on the minute they break into a fit right in front of him again.

"No, I just heard of them," Feli said. Feli pushes a basket of packaged honey and sugar in Klug's direction without his knowing. His glasses hike on the bridge of his noise by two fingers.

"Are they supposed to be promoting fortune?"

"Yeah, you win tickets from them, or advance in a game. You've heard of them, Klug?"

Klug respectively pushes them back.  
"Only from magazines. I heard of the development of a new pachinko though. Was that your town they mentioned?"

"We're not the only ones, I think. We can just be modeling off of what someone else's district has."

Feli breaks in to ask, "Does it take you long to order, Lemres? I didn't know you had a soft spot for breakfast pastries before today."

On the topic of sweets, Lemres teeths his lips into a smile, almost like he's come back to a center in himself, and for the time forgets that Klug and Feli were at all shaking fists under the table.

He tells her waffles and the like are a first, but he's willing to try Waffle House once at least for the experience, and asks if they're ready to order. Feli and Klug look over the menus for a while before a waitress walks them over what they've ordered.  
The waitress continues to attend , and they wait. The three of them kill time better than when they started. And talk fashion sense, springtime, celebrity perils - over ringing porcelain and breaking news.

By the time the waitress is back with what they ordered, Lemres felt it safe to say nothing could go wrong. He carries the tray to the center of their table, watching the plates distribute themselves. With Klug following a theme of tangerines in caramel, and Feli's varying more fruit and with syrup. Lemres ordered the Special. His breakfast in a glass cup waving out at the ends. He ordered what came to be a parfait cup that the staple morning items were blended into and a maraschino standing on its end. As it turns out, that might be what you get.

As it turns out, Lemres likes anything but maraschino cherries and asked if the two sitting across from him would like to trade it off for what they had as toppings.  
They didn't hesitate to take on the chance, then stopping to finish each other's thoughts since reaching their individual forks to pick at their food. Feli substitutes the fork for a finger and tells him, "Don't even think about it."

"I don't need to. If Lemres avoids fruit why do you think he wants any of yours?"

Lemres is tongue-tied, and caught in the middle of saying he was a fan of fruit on a general scale and how they shouldn't promote forks over fists. At least now, Feli listened and sinks her fork into the crowning strawberry on her pancake. But it doesn't do much against the tension breaking out.

Then, from what he understands, Klug sees the pancake and ice cream are opposites compound to fit his tastes better than fruit. If the fruit in question dulls your senses only to a sugar-sweet jam, "I don't see the point in sharing it with Lemres."

"Your ice cream is going to hurt his teeth, four-eyes. Think about that."  
"You think I don't know-"  
"Yes-"  
"-how should temperature difference work better-"

Lemres saw them break in dialogue, running over each other's sentences to make it look like some one can really talk at heartbreaking speeds.

He knew he should be there to mediate for them, but at the time he decided to, Klug and Feli were stepping on each other in their seats and nitpicking their orders - that what already satisfied him as much as the Special did. He tries at their attention again, waving a hand, and asked them, "Feli, Klug, can you please talk it out? Without a fight, please? I can always try both, you know, of your..."

Before he gets to finish, Lemres realizes, they take it the wrong way. And they instead find resolve in a game of rock, paper, scissors. Klug actually plays fair and they draw four times. Feli, allegedly lead on by 'that [which] is fate' and their fifth time placing bets in gesturing the elements, Feli wins.

All he can do is watch. Lemres is convinced he doesn't feel the spoon working out of his grip, as it's still hanging in his mouth.

Klug delivers to Feli, a little louder than he would have liked, "Fortune tell your fucking eulogy. Last person standing wins."

She steals the hat off of his head - when Klug moves to catch it Feli stands from her seat.  
"You want a shorty to give you back pain, Klug?" she asked.

He was even-legged, shoulders falling, and for a while looked to be suffering from a personal attack.  
"You're dead, he confound. He pulled on his dress shirt sleeves to roll them up, thinking, that in lieu of his heavy ass sealing book he would have to impersonate strength. He watches Feli frisbee his hat in their table's direction. She was advancing, her arms hooked around his shoulders, already suspending his making of any moves, and poising herself to stand in the position of a move he studied once. So, from a wrestling book's back-end pages, he read that it was something like a scorpion death drop she was doing.

In his last moments he was renditioning the wrestler's book through a dream. He knew his eyes were still open at the time Feli was throwing him floorward, saw Lemres pinning his mouth shut behind his hands, and grew solemnly aware of the daylights being blown out of him. As it scared him to say, thereafter, he didn't remember a thing.

The Waffle House Lemres took them in for was closest to his town. Everyone was somewhere in the room, in Klug's vicinity whether he was conscious of it or not.

And Feli, now standing, listened to what he had to say in the best sleep-induced episodes she can call to date. One of few she could understand was 'the sun's in my eyes' and only out of pity would she have to move in front of the curtains to cover him. She tried not to look. But as a result of the performance, Klug's leg was bandaged, arm to the shoulders, and head. She and Lemres were keeping eyes out for how he breathes, Feli moreso, Lemres said.

He was here, slumped over a chair, facing away from the desk with his hands in his face. He wouldn't leave the room until he hears them both apologize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope it isn't too obvious but i never fucking went to a waffle house so i kept looking up pictures of it on google and went from there
> 
> i couldn't make this up if i tried :')


	7. adidas consolidates

Oshare admitted clients with at least an idea of fashion principle. He was more than happy to suggest their improving, so he doesn't know why a dark arts practitioner was just now open to Adidas and insisting he find it like an Arca relic. He already told him once, and again to serve as a reminder, that Adidas you can find anywhere. And he refutes the offer, wanting the best of the best Adidas apparel under his belt.  
"Can you tell me your name, hun?"

Oshare recognized he was about to go on a tangent and cuts him off with a hand. He tells him his name is Schezo Wegey.

"Who told you about Adidas then?"

"I - you should know Arle - I was made a fool of myself when she said I've been 'missing the real deal'. That I should invest in the Adidas brand name and when I asked what it was - Adidas is apparently the most sought after clothing brand in her world." He pulled a face, working his eyebrows closer, like he believed any of what Arle said shouldn't be taken for a joke.

Oshare helps himself to asking, "Why?"

"What do you mean, why? I want its power. If there is formidable armor here I'm happy to take and find use of it."

And in further word of his own, Schezo made himself out to be a burglar, assuring he can do all that he wants when the clothes are in his hands.

"Why wouldn't you go to another store that has this brand," he asked.

"They forbade me from going inside them."

Oshare suddenly makes it a point to catch his breath in the cover of his hands over his mouth, mocking the respiratory system he doesn't have or need.

"Get out," He would've said if Schezo didn't stand right behind the counter to hear it. He only reflects the look of horror on Oshare because he is, not out of the signs clicking for him that he might've probably said something wrong. He coughs and glances the room in half-turns of his head, on the lookout for Adidas - three-striped, no double. Schezo returns the questions, "Are they not letting me claim Adidas because of its great power, do you think?"

Oshare is fighting a smile to fit a line, agreeing and nodding off the absolute work this guy was.

"It's powerful against the harsher climate. With some pieces giving you full protection," he went on, "Schezo, you know what stores to buy from or should I direct you to a few I know?"

"Yes, give it to me!"  
"The coordinates," he reiterates.

Oshare has to turn around to hide the pain of laughing in silence and quickly on a sheet writes the names of stores around their district.

"Uh - a few of them are further than here. I'm thinking the next town over but nothing too far away. You should be..."  
Oshare handed the list over the counter and was looking for the word. When he leaves his bordered-off space of the store, he walks over and sits a hand on his shoulder.

Oshare said, "Schezo, look, I want you to take careful measure of how you talk to the store owners. You don't know that they share your tastes in humor so talk in a way everyone can get you."

Not that he was counting on it being this sexually repressed for a gag, but Oshare tried. He patted his shoulders and sent him off with the best of luck. Schezo, waving back, and would come to read the back of the note that directed him to the closest library.


	8. moon cheese

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imagine going to school to learn how to master a kid's puzzle game

The day lands him close to a week-end. Sig runs into the library more times than not having to catch up on his school work, and by the space where Klug inevitably is whiling the hours away on magic studies. He wants to do better around him. And even if they don't get to talk on strictly confidential means, he's always wanted to let him know that, that he isn't being deliberately slow to pull his leg.

The first time it was Klug, though, when Sig promised himself he would come over and talk for the hell of it with him, Klug asked if he was okay. He found him sleeping with his eyes open and admitted he was scared he didn't know what face he was making.

"I just never saw you study here," he said, sure as to mention his concern was minimal but still aggravating in the presence.

Sig rubbed the sleep from his eyes to see him under early noon light, where it crossed the curtains and flitted every time they move. He looks from the light down to Klug, and said, "Uh, yeah. Just trying something new. Why?"

"You might need help. What I'm saying is that you could have a hand at this, the class material, and I can help out, you know," he stuttered.  
On reciting this back in his head, he's never been more conscious of the fact that he can, and did, lose his dignity to correct himself. But Sig broke into a laughable grin and pulled a seat for him. For the both of them, this was a first.

They scrutinized the puyo curriculum and, as for today's case, the semblance of doing GTR in its close sub-forms. Though it kept on, a day of the week that Sig and Klug were thinking are Wednesdays, Sig is paying mind to Klug's iterations and catching on quicker from it. He still doesn't know what else bothers him enough to keep Klug meeting him. And realized a few days after, he doesn't need it. The fourth week, or a third - one of them, Sig doesn't remember in earnest because they felt like the weeks compressed into hours of the day. So Klug found him again in the library, wandering on his own empty-handed, and Sig followed the green, temporal light for spring back to Klug.

Right away he asks, "Hey, I thought you only wanted me to tutor you. Did you leave something here?"

"No," he flat-tones, "I want to read next to you."

Klug's reaction is obscured in the book he was reading like Sig might have just read the captions aloud to him in PuyoBoy. He trips on his words but doesn't deny him.  
He was already on the floor, sitting not too far from the shelves in a sun spot, and was giving room for the two of them to share it. Their backs against each other's so that when either one breathes they're stirred. Sig chose books to read in advance. He wanted what the library offered by a thin margin bug history and the hunt.

As he advanced the pages of one of these books, his right arm fell at his side and sat on someone else's hand. Taking him all the time in the world to notice but Klug twitched on contact.  
He was put out out of it, flushed impressively, and still didn't mind moving his hand. Klug almost turned around to give him a piece of his mind. Which, he was thinking, he shouldn't do under any circumstance. That was a bad idea, he's over that.

With the hand thumbing his book, Klug gauged his temperature. Hand on forehead, the cheek and finally matted over his ear to support and forget kindling into a puddle. Sig worked on intermingling their fingers; he was holding Klug's hand and Klug started to hold onto his. He wasn't sure who happened to do it first but was too high in a fever to ask.

——

The astronomical opus, a star shower, falls on around the beginning of spring. Forecasts include the best city districts and times to be of witness to them and to see lights pearling into thin air for hours. Earlier on the news, a sliver out of everything Klug remembered, had said Primp and few other towns could see them today. Optimal - 12 to 5 a.m. - for sightseers, and following the next two weeks the shows will have intervaled. Gridded weather maps and discussion keeping in rural context - Klug doesn't have the energy or effort to listen to so he leaves it on to buzz in the back of his head over breakfast. He's already written down an exact date and a line that branched off, reminding Klug of an opportunity.

By the end of the day, they make it a habit to come outside for the star showers and Sig has to ask why the moon doesn't smell like cheese if it's so big.

Klug struggles to raise his hand, and puts it down when he's laughing too hard to save face. When he glances at him, and again, he laughs harder into stock-silence and Sig has to laugh too.

"Want to find out?"

"I do," Sig answered. He felt Klug's hand on his neck pull him in close as he whispered a secret unlike him.

"I'll find you moon cheese," he laughed into his ear, "It'll be my gift to you."  
"What for?" he said. Sig couldn't help a smile run over his cheek when he leaned in.

Klug was struggling to put this into words now. He wasn't going to tell him how Sig steals his focus when he walks into the same room. His heart, on a molecular level, starts falling apart and he can feel it when his chest heaves. He pays attention to how weird he walks around Sig. When he was walking and breathing just fine before the instep of his foot fails him. Klug can't tell him all of this, naturally, so he seconds to leaning away from his ear and the sky comes out of focus.

The moon is high enough to where he can just see their hands are cupped in no particular order. Klug leans in again, convincing Sig he must have forgotten something as Klug lips the corners of his mouth and further into a kiss.


	9. primp worldbuilding

"The Primp schooling system follows three criteria to the fleshing out of their lessons: technique study, mastery, and execution. Students are open to the fundamental know-how's that is puyo puyo and how they are to set off, why, and eventually going on to their immersion in matches. Since popping enough puyo harbors the student's magic, at one point execution and mastery are integrated into one course session, as some teachers find it saves time.

Though, while anyone can study and play puyo puyo, it's acting on the magic you build as a result that draws advanced students from the middle class. Depending on the might of your attack and how well coordinated, this alone can promote a student's position. Out of the fact that puyo puyo is encouraged to having been mastered as a means of protecting one's self and the greater depth in magic studies overall. This isn't the only other option, but as an example, a student's skill in puyo can be far behind proficient and instead take up on a variety of the magic arts, but this is among the more challenging pathways. A third and often idolized option given, is for students to show advancements in both puyo puyo and magic arts singlehandedly. This is said to have been reserved for talent, as work pays off but students are testing their in-class limits as much as they do exponentially in the practice of magic."

This had to have come through everyone's dense skulls at one point, as it did for Raffina. Weeks ago she stole Klug's books out of wholly spite for him (but never would she say exactly what it was that bothered her) and read these herself. She stopped to gloat, a corner or a light reflected in her water being an object of focus as she figured out her place. Never mind that she lies about possessing magic potential, if she only ever possessed the source of it from her bag, and would lie anyway to have a leg-up on Klug. Raffina wanted desperately to know what this meant for her, being without the gift or availability in her bloodline.

She thought she'd even have to ask. But Mrs. Accord handed the answer to her discretely, answering another student's question and, thank God, went on to repeat for the class to hear.

In the Primp school there was something like a gymnasium, on account of its' strength training for who may need it. Keeping in mind she was a cold-humored 'magic-user', Raffina isn't ignoring the limits set for her as it is. She catches on to the concept - of puyo - but the attack carries out flimsy and far-out, or too concentrated on an axis, on her end. So to save herself the embarrassment she would utilize strength training today.

The room structures like any gym. Posters diagram point of range and at least twenty a headcount of target dummies were waiting on stilts to get fried.

To prevent the student body from suffering these attacks, three sliding doors line the room vertically, a fourth crossing them to split the area into eight separate training grounds.

Raffina borrowed an empty room and surprised to say she didn't think it was small compared to their classroom. She watched her back, to make sure Klug doesn't find her sitting on a problem he will absolutely bring out to an extreme. She found nothing, and shut the door behind the force of her palm.

For students not at all magically articulate, she remembered Mrs. Accord mention a field that surrounds all living things, and to bring it out we should start from its strongest point (the soul) and run it through to your area of choice. Or the hands, if this was where students project their attacks. She would try it out, and go in zen mode, probably to better get the gist of it. Raffina found a bench at the furthest wall opposite the door and left her morning supplies there.  
A low, sailing breath going out as she stretched. She thinks back to any yoga poses she can use.

And another voice protrudes across the room. Raffina could have been kidding herself but it sounded like someone she knew. And the voice trails again through the walls. She made a move to put her ear against the wall as it burst or - no - a gas like fire clambered over the wall without leaving the fire to catch and died off to leave a shape of its intrusion on the wall.

Shock froze her still, the same shock moving Raffina closer to the blasted flecks of plaster around the wall and dust smoking between the two rooms, that she could see in their movement even under no real light, until she looked in and saw figures matching the voice she heard.

– - –

As it happens, Klug was sick in the middle of a listless spring. That one day it was rain, or shine, or correlating both under a wind hard enough to shake the roof off his house. He didn't know if it was last week or since yesterday he was so much the slicker in heat and a case of chills. He felt like his eyes were giving out but he still went to school and all Sig can do is hide him in the training rooms until after the final bell.

He noticed Klug imbued in a fever only after they left the room and he was waking him to the nursery. As before he thought Klug was that much flustered and wanted in on the joke that cracked his ego. Sig also mistook he was even taking Klug to the nursery because halfway to the second door they passed on their right, he nimbly felt the length of his sleeve to seize his hand.

Klug gave away a piercing air then.

He asked if he can stay in the training rooms, begged him to leave the nursery and forget he waste his time waiting for the affirmative a ride home when there was none. Sig was picking up on a whine. And for a long while doesn't say anything, pained with the idea of leaving him either at home better off and forever hating his guts or neglecting a spring cold. They stand in the quiet.

Klug finally promised to help Sig even train when they get there. He  
sucked the air in through his teeth that intervaled his talking when a headache triggers. Sig muttered in something like disapproval, and renewed the strength to throw his hand off.

"I'm not - listen," he started, "I can't let you hurt yourself bad. You're not at home when you should be, so at least let me take care of you. You really need to stop-"

He cuts off as Klug coughs into his fist, recites he doesn't need to worry. He was fine as long as the condition is in a stasis.  
He said, "I'm fine, I'm fine. How do the nurses treat me anyway? They sit me on a cushioned bench and leave a barrel of animal crackers for me. You have animal crackers, Sig?"

Sig doesn't and promises he keep his eye on him, should Klug do anything more stupid to date. Klug would have brushed his sleeve again and squeezed his good arm (the one that breaks his pencils) if given the energy to show for it. He instead smiled and on their way back to training grounds, Sig continued shooting down his chances of payback.

He can't stand seeing Klug like this. Better yet he wants him to take his lunch money and go outside for once on a bug hunt. Anything, he said.

Sig was wrapping an arm for support around Klug as they walked.

When they are safe and Klug is dozing off on a bench lining the wall, Sig has to admit he wants a little shut-eye too but was riled for once and stressing a one out of a thousandth chance he really should take Klug to the nursery. So he stood to watch over him. And enthused his Lady Bug for a time.

Klug snaps to attention after twenty minutes only to read Trajection Theory, with his legs kicking up and his back to the ceiling. He already struggles to lie straight without sinking face-first into the pages. Klug eventually is the one to ask, "Why don't you go back to class?" while rolling his sleeves and sweating, impressionable by the fever he chose to ignore. It looks like Klug had a workout behind his back and just now retreated to the books.

"I took you out when my free period started, Klug. Why aren't you sleeping?" he answered.

"Because, it doesn't help if I'm too hot to sleep for long. I know what to occupy myself with."

Klug's eyes fall from the book to the floor the longer in thought he was. He said, "Why don't you use the combat rooms since we're here?"

Sig tenses. If Klug was looking at the time he would've seen his hair appendages twitch. (But as rare as the epiphany, it saw through to Klug in his dreams).

"I'm too scared to raise the wrong hand when I fire off. You know how I attack with my right? Or both?"

Klug nods in his direction.

"It's 'cuz I have no control how strong my attacks are from my left hand. Could be the source of all my power. And last time, when I tried, I broke a tree in half."

And Sig wasn't willing to try again. He can't begin to guess how the attack will be renditioned - this mattering less in the face of opponents because then he can let his attacks be unpredictable all they want. He was afraid of the unpredictable blowing this room's walls off.

Kl. meditates on it as he thumbs in between the pages.

"I know of a few ways to keep it under your belt, if I can read them off for you," he mused.

"Klug, please. Don't. If you live until tomorrow I can ask. You shouldn't even be up right now."

Klug draws his face together, exhausting a shallow noise and immediately his enthusiasm is straight down to none.

Sig can't believe it's the second time he manages to convince him otherwise. So Klug cues that he found what he was looking for and he listens. He's lagging behind the words before he asks Klug to recap.

Sig starts off with a three chain, synonymous for lack of effort or strain on everyone's part if they didn't need a technique. Green puyo sandwiched the red that sandwiched the purple, and he set it off.  
The attack concentrated now on his left arm, as a raw progression of his power was running to his hand. This was already too much, he was thinking, too much if he had any hopes of controlling it.

Compared to how he normally does, the attack manifests into a sphere dilating and losing shape. It looked more or less alive and not like a fire in his hand anymore.

Klug was sitting up against the wall to watch. He couldn't immerse himself completely being red in the face and fatigue-ridden, but he isn't turning away. Sig was channeling the attack in his left arm alone, about to fire it off. And out of a change in energy, Klug called it off with a "Go!".

Sig projects the rolling fire in his hands at a nearby dummy, that missed, lands on the wall and through it.

Raffina double takes when she sees this.

This is when she loses character for a minute to undergo the shock. She asks what they're doing of all things and Sig jokingly allows her to step inside.  
"Thanks. I'll use the door," she mouthed. Raffina points to nothing in particular and goes through the motions of interrogating them as her reaction catches up to her.

"You're doing magic."

Klug answered for them: "No. I think we're done here."

"He's skipping classes and bumming it out in the gym."

"No," Sig repeated, "He's sick."

"And you're not leaving to go home?"

Sig decides now is when he cuts Klug off from a downpour of excuses and tell Raffina how it is. Raffina listened earnestly, still latching a hand to a part of the wall that was in tact until her interrupting was necessary.

"Klug, get up. It's the nurse's or the heel of my shoe."

Klug almost choked on his spit. He tried resisting but that got him nowhere but dragged into the halls holding Sig's arm and Raffina policing him from behind.

After Sig being the one who promised him his lunch, Klug was persuaded to stumble inside, as Raffina and Sig circled the school back to where the halls crossed. Sig had thanked Raffina personally, that it was close to the end of his free period and he didn't know if he would have the heart to leave Klug alone, sick and out of his mind. Raffina welcomes the gesture.  
And on closing the door behind them, they hear a voice in there with Klug that doesn't register with being one of the nurses. They were quick to assume he was probably under someone else's care, a student or some other, and moved on their separate ways. Not paying mind to a sudden fog sifting from the cracks of the nursery's door.


	10. market festival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my outline says 'Market stands in Primp but Witch sells octopus arms and no one is ballsy enough to try it but Sig. He is betting rare bugs on this, so the people deliver.'
> 
> and i just have to

A few weeks early into summer, Primp holds the tradition of stands open for auction at the center of town. A great market is adhered and the catch being that it doesn't stop for nights at a time. Shops are open twenty-four hours to run deals and trade on end before sunset the following three days, lasting the event four consecutive days. Amitie and Arle highlight this event most out of every other one in the current month to remind themselves they can bring Ringo in for the fun too. If not servicing the people, there are customers, where most students fall into place anyway.

Most of the students' time in class was spent gawking at the center of town in the middle of setup just hours before it could initially start. Already they aired something fresh in discussion, and the point drawn from, always, was the Market Festival. But like every year, Sig walks home and to busy himself, does what he did best.

"You're not thinking of catching bugs tomorrow, are you? Sig?"

Sig comes to when a hand is waved in front of him. His mouth works ahead of him for an answer neither Amitie or he could distinguish.

"You are, huh? There's no doubt about it."

"I am? What?" he echoed.

Amitie points him in the direction of the windows.

"The Festival, you know! We just have so much fun together and half the time you're left out of it. We want to show you around."

Quick to tell his indifference already, Amitie tries to convince him.

"Once," she added, "And I know some good store fronts sell something you might like. Everyone always comes out of it having fun, I thought you should give it a chance. If it's not your thing, I won't bring you along anymore. Deal?"

Sig wasn't one to count how regularly he missed these events, but according to Klug - and who else - he was absent thrice since he first was resident in Primp and as a student. Whereas before I don't know what festivities in particular were custom to you but it doesn't appear to matter as much as bugs do...

He cuts off from his headspace unnaturally fast to consider it. If anyone's willing, he could buy jars of honey by the time he gets there. It was something to look forward to, so Sig approves.

Amitie cheers in response, and thanks him at a side glance before spreading the news around class.

Otherwise, their day was in smooth-sailing. The school day ends on a high note and everyone splits.

Normally, on two days out of the school week Klug occupies his free time for tutoring but because they were on the edge of summer he found they didn't need to, that he was already going to forget it over summer break - without a doubt. So Sig takes the path home and goes night night.

Tomorrow, he wakes up at the festival. His morning routine going over his head and, if he had to guess, he was taking in the view on his way there. Only when the store lights snapped on for business did he notice he was there. At a distance, he saw Raffina and Klug.

If at one point they lost something good to fight over or because they found him, he wasn't sure. But any tension from earlier has by now dissolved.

"I didn't see you as an early bird," Klug said.

"Yeah?"

He looked up to find the sun behind Nahe's high end trees.

"Oh. Guess the sun really's rising."

Out of earshot, it was expected for Klug to chide him under his breath but Sig was already being dragged away by Raffina. And had to screw his head at an angle to meet Klug as he continued.

"Did you show up at daybreak on a whim or something?"

"Uh-huh."

"Sig, you look like you haven't slept in forever - you know you don't have the excuse of staying up late to work..."

"I know."

In the space of silence they had between them, Sig relaxed into the pull to ask Raffina something. Though, before he can finish putting it into words she says, "Town square, you dope."

It doesn't take long to get there on your own two feet, even less than five minutes if Raffina is reminded not to wander into the clothing booths right away.

When Sig bothers to shake off her grip he paces behind the other two and looks around. Following lights tied around trees no higher than a single-story building and paper decor in the windows of some of those buildings. He wanted to watch and wait for the street lamps to finally blink off until he feels someone tugging his arm again. Then Klug swears in the height of his panic and steers him away from a metal pole just as they find the center of town.

He wants to apologize and instead thanks him out of habit. Finding it impersonal and safer than a 'sorry'. Sig doesn't think Klug would pick up on it but he does. And latches on to it for their next theme of discussion. Sig at least is grateful too in the sense that he has something waking him up every passing minute.

"Hey, Glasses? Know where Ami is?" he asked.

At the incentive, Klug half-asses wiping the glasses on his shirt and slides them back on to look for her. A small crowd was starting to catch on even this early in the morning. And the owners of storefronts were just walking into their shift - with Amitie still far out of sight.

"Amitie? She initially promised to meet us here but it looks like I can't be holding her to that. She must have slept in again. It's not unlike her."

"Okay." Sig answers in afterthought. And looks up again, almost in reflection if Klug was willing to believe it.

"Uh yeah," Sig started, "Why are we here so early in the first place?"

Klug handles his glasses again, this time for show.

"For the record, this festival is a bigger deal than you let on. If we had come a few hours later, we would have missed out on good deals. And if they were still here by that time, we would've stood in line for longer than we did shop."

"You came here for something in particular?" he asked.

"I did," Klug said. And before Sig answers, not that he could think of anything much to add anyway, "Well, if you insist... It's a signed copy of a work that I've been meaning to add to my collection."

"What's the name?"

"Ah, well, it wouldn't appeal to you, Sig. I don't- I don't think its lexile is up your ally, so to speak."

"What, you can't tell me, Klug?"

Sig feigned a smile Klug thought didn't suit him as much as this 'work' did.

"No," he said, "I can. I just choose not to. Are you pressing me about what I can and can't say?"

"Just tell me when their summer release is coming up."

"Oh my god- Sig-"

The rest of his excuse draws out in a heavy sigh. Klug's hands under the lenses to hide his eyes and moving across the entirety of his face to hide as much of it as he can. He's not going to admit he's right, and Sig is fine with it. But he finds it way funnier when he sees Klug then drag himself away into the nearest open storefront.

Still, he decides it would be better to let him go from here. Doesn't help to push it. Because as much as he can take being poked at, Klug quickly melts under pressure (if he's on the downside of an argument) and as much fun as he's having he knew he could be having more fun as soon as Klug gets over himself and makes the purchase. (ahaaa jkjk)

When Klug left, he sees Raffina did too at some point, much to Klug's liking. But they would pass each other by on their own selective tours of the marketplace and if Sig stops for long enough he bears the burden of hearing her spill her feelings for five minutes. Something about the dealer not letting her get away with fighting for the last handbag with its latest buyer.

"Okay," Sig says, "That's cool, Rafi."

In two hours' time, Sig finally runs into Amitie. In four, they recuperate with Arle, Ringo and Lidelle at what looks like the busiest time of day for the Market Festival. Everyone walked in a closely-knit group for the better half of an hour until their interests were overriding each other's. Ringo and Lidelle split off from Sig and Amitie, and Arle sees Draco running headfirst into a water bucket deciding to aid her.

It wasn't a first for Sig. To even be around this high of an energy when he himself lacks to support it. To everyone else it looked like they had a near talent for it. When he matches her pace, Sig considers Amitie quietly in the same way.

"You promised right?" she said, her eyes busy on the whole of the town square.

"Yeah." Sig pitches it almost as a question. He takes the opportunity to focus on something else so as to not attract the wrong attention from her.

Amitie comes across more childish than before as her arms crossed behind her back.

"So. Here we are!"

Sig is lagging behind, and Amitie knew she had it coming, but she can't help but laugh into her hand anyway.

"Thanks." she said again.

Amitie wouldn't force him into the stands that she wanted exclusively either. The two of them being lead to wherever they wanted whenever either of them wanted to. So things were just starting to calm down much to Sig's luck.

Then, later in the day - and it couldn't have been more than a few hours - they come back around to Arle. Who had her back turned to the pair and talking with Draco.

Sig naturally sleeps through the greetings. Only catching the tail end of their conversation about peppers and the dangers of abusing your spice tolerance. Which to him was enough to piece the whole picture ten minutes too late.

As the group gravities toward an occupied stand, Sig follows, making out the vague enough shape of a vendor at a distance.

"Oh, Witch!"

Arle leans her forearms over the flimsy table to look into the tent. As Witch steps into view from behind it, shifting piles of boxes more comfortably over her hands.

"Hey, hey, hello."

She tips her head around the boxes and lays them down after finding an empty quadrant of space for them.

Arle pauses in mock study of her.

"Hold on. I want to guess for myself what you're up to."

"That's a little mean. You know I'm not always up to something dangerous."

"I'm not saying it has to be dangerous."

Witch tugs her hat a little more into place and dives under the table again to hide a breaking smile.

"But if you're interested," she mused.

Then from where they can't see she rolls her sleeves to her elbows and lets her newest project speak for itself. She resurfaces and sets a tray of cooked octopus in front of them. The general response nearing disgust until it catches on to them what they're looking at. And even then, no one found it appetizing in the least.

"What? Is it the way I prepared it?"

"No. It's..."

Amitie finishes for Arle on a shared glance.

"It's just, it looks exotic. We're not used to that."

Whether or not it happened to be undercooked remains to be seen but the longer Amitie drawls an explanation the more worked up Witch was getting, both in equal parts embarrassed and offended. The only one unphased was Sig who still didn't mind the sight. On being asked of the smell, even, Sig tells Arle he's used to it with how long he spends his time with Ocean Prince.

Amitie and Arle cue each other in a way Sig isn't familiar with but it gets to Amitie one way or another that his high tolerance with seafood can be helpful.

"Prince isn't seafood," he intones.

"No, I mean- you know what I mean."

Amitie deliberately backs away from Witch and catches his eye.

"Sig, do you think we can strike a deal?" she asked.

"Lay it on me."

"You try Witch's tentacle goop in return for me buying you a rare butterfly from here."

Sig's antennae carried half the emotion for him.

"They sell those?"

"M-hm! Didn't think I would find it before you actually."

Then Amitie, bypassing "It's not goop! Don't call it that!" replies, "Okay, Witch you've got yourself a customer."

The three of them quickly pile in what they have to minimize the blows on their allowance. Witch supplies a fork. And before long, Sig found himself at the forefront of a bet and the table.

Sig doesn't mind. Maybe he minds the smell on him later but it isn't that much higher a risk. He looks down on the heap of tentacles and suckers figuring out how he's going to eat it, like someone trying pizza for the first time.

And he wanted to ask Ocean Prince if this counts for eating one of his friends (/subjects). But now wasn't the time or likely place for it. Sig feels it in little touches before he picks up the fork.

He wasn't scared of it happening but had a feeling the thing could jump at him if he didn't pin it down with his fork sooner. But Sig eventually bites into it. The girls from behind crowding him and the octopus to see for themselves, and asking for Sig's input before he could finish chewing.

Raffina might know more about this but personally, all meat tasted roughly like chicken to him. Now wasn't an exception so much as it just felt like a softer-to-chew chicken.

"Weird," he says.

The girls fix between him and the plate as he stands up to ask for a box. As little intrigue as he put into this normally, Sig tried to stretch his answers anyway. It wasn't bad. It wasn't uncomfortably slimy, no. Yeah , it tasted like sea chicken I guess.

On their way out, and as soon as Amitie reaches the end of her hysterics, he is quick to ask for their expense.

"Oh! Right. I think I know... I passed it around here..." Then, Arle and Sig are on her tail as Amitie suddenly finds it in her to focus. Sig doesn't doubt she's lying when they all paid for the octopus (that he was keeping), and she wasn't, much to his favor. 

They stop short of the tent that Sig notices a catch.

As Arle takes notice she gives him a hand on the back. Sig doesn't hear what she says over the noise of the crowd but he's only lead to assume it was reassuring coming from her. The line wasn't that long if he thought about it.


	11. klug goes to hot topic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big joke alert. this one's for amino. 
> 
> so i did all of this in one sitting and honestly ?? not even upset. it's not as bad i thought it'd turn out, just a little rough but i hope this can suffice, migugu!

As much as he says otherwise, it comes like a reflex to a lot of people when they first meet him (or even in passing, what the first thing he would impress on them) is Klug always standing before the teacher, always in the shadow of someone greater. Almost mock-honors-student if he didn't put as much stress on it as any real honors student would.

And but he wakes up to it every morning, he at least has an idea of where it stems from. Just two weeks ago Klug stood back from the bathroom mirror that boxed him in, roughing up his bed head even more, taking turns sliding the glasses on and off. And by no real extension of thought, he asked, 'Was it the glasses? Is that really what it came down to?' Because the glasses he can do without. It was just out of convenience he sticks to wearing them everyday. To kill less time during the day, the time saved equivalent to getting another page of questions down or a quarter of a chapter read. Klug didn't mind. But it was only that morning that he had considered maybe he spent long enough feeding into that routine because on the other hand, he too wouldn't mind compensating for his lack of effort (- trying contacts, maybe).

He absorbed himself in the idea so often the backlog of everything that followed 'my glasses' intimated him. So he didn't wait for the weekend, instead going out on one of the two easy lecture days that lined up with some of his classes during the week. By Thursday he was jumping with nerve and couldn't even rush through the questions for tonight before the last bell. It was all he could do but keep the later half of the day in his retention.

20 minutes before that bell, Klug imagined pedaling his old bike through a sidewalk, as it was regressing to a body of wet cement and swallowing him under on the way to the mall. He zoned out more than people think he would. But Ms. Accord hadn't caught on today. 

Then he hears the bell sing through the ceiling intercom and Klug no longer had to pick so hard at the thought of it. So he pushed from the desk and goes. This time pushing left out of a crowd than right, in the direction of Primp's town square and opposite of his place.

And really, Klug hated that bike. So even in cases where it was a necessity to bike somewhere he would stick his neck out for any greater reason not to. He didn't ask for one seeing that everything was more or less a ten minute walk away. And he didn't think to sell it until the open metal grew a layer of tawny brown rust he could see from the foot of the garage door.

Or, that's what he first tied it to when he played with a heavy chain necklace at Hot Topic - thinking should he buy it on a whim, its gleaming nickel would rot outside in (if it was real nickel to begin with). Klug thought it was the only thing keeping him from leaving until the rest of what the store had on display caught up to him.

Most of what Klug walked through resembled too much of his own tastes. So this already was a start, even if he didn't like a good part of it already. Or later, as Klug would pin it down to just the noise rock peaking at an 11 more often than he felt comfortable with.

Klug needed to serpentine the whole of the store to get around the layout, opting for walking the store over and over in one go as opposed to spreading visits across a couple weeks. The clothes on the other hand were fit to Klug's real and deeply burrowed preferences - when he was sitting at home and had no one to dress in front of, which was when he felt it was the only time he could dress down. Pants wore tears in them. Belts were spiked with the spikes curving tight enough to prick from what he could tell. Boots, if Klug put on their boots it was only fit someone's cheek should fill in the arch of those boots when he walked out.

Only after Klug pushed his back against the other side of the changing room, when both his hands were full of hangers and the ones folded in shelves tossed over his arms, Klug could say he fell in love with it harder than he should.

Klug wanted to cut the tags off at home. But he left Hot Topic still untucking his shirt and throwing his cap into the bag after purchase. If Klug should ever dress the part he would do it following the metric set out for him from here. So and he got himself the colored contacts, a heavy chain, faded crimson vest. He doesn't even know what Nirvana means but he's still buying the damn shirt that wears its label. Tomorrow, he's not going to pretend like he won't be drinking in their faces at any given time, first thing that morning. And even before then, he feels it leaving Hot Topic and on the way home - throwing them over one shoulder like a messenger bag so as not to rouse a bitch of a cramp later - that Klug comes out a new man.


	12. breakfast at d̶e̶n̶n̶y̶'̶s̶  amitie's

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the real life equivalent klug (ugu). i don't know where i was going with this but i tied it with eggs/omlettes and after three weeks on break it somehow didn't turn to shit. so u uh enjoy!

Lidelle delivers newspapers first thing in the morning before school. It wasn't that she needed the money for anything dire. She just liked knowing she had something to fall back on even if it wasn't that much. This and when she's on-duty Lidelle makes it a habit to visit Amitie's last for breakfast on the days she hits the alarm clock on time. Today is omlettes.

Lidelle has long taken her seat as Amite crosses from cabinet to cabinet to the table again. She's poking fun at herself, saying she's in no particular rush today despite what her rushing now would tell you otherwise.

It's weird but when it's just the two of them Lidelle finds she doesn't need to worry about composing herself as much. There were few people Lidelle can recall sparking such an easy connection with and at first even she didn't believe it but if anyone else took her place, she thinks, they would accustom to the girl in just as little time as she did.

And unsurprisingly, it happened to be Amitie's idea. But neither of them were planning it. Amitie didn't bother to check who the other guy was switched out with that throws her the news every morning and Lidelle didn't know just how many of Amitie's ideas were based and judged on a whim.

She doesn't know about anyone else but a lot of what Lidelle keeps to herself and wants but doesn't have the heart to enact she likes seeing reflected in someone else the likes of Amitie or Raffina or almost any and everyone that isn't so outwardly shy the way she is. Because believe it or not, Lidelle has to bite her tongue on most things. She wants to spit on the floor and punch a wall sometimes when the going couldn't get worse but no one sees that. None of her immediate classmates anyway.

But if she was being given as much down time as she was with her, it's not surprising how things would've turned out. Amitie soon enough finds out for herself. At first by accident, when Lidelle bumps her hip on table or burns her tongue on tea, and by the time they've been warming up to each other for a little over a week in that same kitchen every school morning. It's when Amitie catches her swearing one time that everything Lidelle has been working up to she realized was lost.

Lidelle started tearing up, not to promptly get into character again but as in effect from her nerve and calming down the best way she can. Crying dismisses thought the quickest anyway and it was almost like just another muscle memory trigger, almost like yawning.

Unfortunately, when Lidelle tried to explain this in some small part it didn't help Amitie talking over her to beat herself up for making her cry and trying to remember where their kleenex was the one time she needed it most.

This was probably after their second time breakfasting together that Amitie is tasked walking out with something big coming from someone that looked the least suspect.

And she can understand wholly why Lidelle doesn't want this going out. So that even if you take away all the times she promised to, and is, keeping her friends' secrets on closed lips there was just no benefit drawn from hurting someone like Lidelle, simple as that.

So in more breakfasts to come, it was clear this small get together was doing more for them than they could've asked for.

Lidelle is almost dipping her nose into her sharing of omelette when Amitie gets her attention. She says something obligatory about the time and how much they're running out of it and how well she just saw herself in Lidelle, showing a dumb smile that does enough for Lidelle to crack one herself.


	13. island questing (SCARY) (GONE WRONG)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for callie from someone who probably went overboard creatively on just a 'sig x klug confession scene' but i tried :'y 
> 
> (note: viirvas isn't a canon character anywhere in puyo i'm just making stuff up)

Klug regrets horribly not telling Sig. They originally came to the ruins - of a town he's happy Sig doesn't back him in asking because he forgot the name already himself - somewhere in a dry, yellow-wrung field, further offshore and closer to the island's heart.

They accepted a quest there, unsuitable to low and intermediate ranked adventurers but Klug managed to talk both their ways in (lying as best as he can to say Sig was up to his rank too). Their objective was to look into an area nearby town for a strong spirit, which they happen to amass more in the older the place is that they inhabit. Kill it and bring back whatever it may have possessed in the time they were fighting it.

The quest was really just for him, Klug won't lie. To study these angrier, and in that case stronger, spirits up close and since he rarely finds the opportunity to get his hands dirty with one otherwise.

But this one came alone. When every other grassy expanse or abandoned, half-standing house they walked by was teeming with the souls of those still holding on to life.

Klug recognized this spirit has a name from a number of logs he read in the town's only library (finding it by accident when he wanted to kill time but he would never admit that). Viirvas or something close to that.

He knew where to look for it seeing as how in every other diagram from those logs it shows Viirvas built like a tank. All spirits start off possessing small bits of scrap (n.b it has to be inanimate so this goes to show why plant life has been left untouched). All spirits start off small but it's only you get to the more elaborate designs the stronger a spirit is, or the stronger its intent is on living, which is really what it all comes down to.

When they found Viirvas it didn't look so much like a bird nest of metal and plaster and brick as it did any other monster they fought before, just condensed into the unmalleable corners and flats of the material making up its body. Breathing through the cracks of it like one day hasn't gone by where they at any point died.

Klug wanted to write in his own logbook that this one's exclusively long-range and relies on a stash of grenades and guns and, at worst, rocks and bigger, heftier scraps. But as soon as they were a foot's distance away they needed to gain distance from it again to avoid the oncoming attacks.

The least he told Sig on their coming here was that the spirit they would be dealing with is a more aggressive type but nothing they couldn't handle - when in truth Klug wasn't even sure if he can handle it. He brushes off that a spirit this geared up could maybe just be out of their league for once. And like usual he let his ego work ahead of him.

Even as Klug had to come to terms with them being at a downside he stands his ground anyway. At some point Klug thought that even if they lose against the spirit at least he's not the first to admit it.

But it wasn't just that they were on the downside of things, Viirvas had it so Klug and Sig were split off, Klug landing a little to hard for comfort on his shoulder blade against a wall, some parts collapsing on impact, and Sig taking one too many blows he was on the floor trying at least not to fall again for good and blink the stars away in his vision.

It was then Klug saw something was really off. Viirvas was coming on Sig, closing distance but with nothing in spirit-hand. This was the first time the spirit had initiated anything close-range with them but standing just a hair away from Sig it hunkered down. Viirvas was starting to build all of its magic reserve into one great explosion he realized. And would've taken Sig down with it if he got to the spirit's back a second later.

He had it better planned out in his head. That Klug would make sure to dig the sword deeper to last the impact of the spell and fire away but it was more like his first time holding it and feeling just as heavy, jabbing anywhere as long as it was on the target and when he phrased the spell, by then Klug's throat was already closing up.

It was his last resort spell, breaking the sword beyond use or repair but, in ways of that, had enough firepower exploding that it blew the spirit's 'body' back to pieces, effectively drawing it away for some time if it wanted to manifest in so many scraps again.

But Klug wasn't paying attention to that. At most his focus was on how tight he can wrap his hand around his mouth - in his last stupid attempt at saving some dignity - before he can let his knees give. And really cry because Sig shouldn't be the one rubbing his back and encouraging him it's fine it's okay but it's the only thing he can do is cry pathetically over his chest.

When he gets his voice working again he doesn't really hear himself say it until Sig responds.

"Love you too, Glasses."


	14. dialogue only bby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> decided to try doing only dialogue and see how big of a dumpster fire it can turn out (kidding x2)
> 
> ~~guess who’s who - i feel like it adds to the fun :)~~
> 
> or if you don't want to guess, check the notes at the end))
> 
> so, i got the idea from SchezoLoverNo1 and now guess who's making a part two to this? because No one deserves to be left hanging like this. 
> 
> both are out of character maybe. lots of ums uhs and ... s
> 
> but seeing as there's no prose or speaker tags to work into the dialogue i can be more lenient towards using them. anyway, have fun. i hope the change in style isn't too weir d

"Sorry, but I don’t think I know you."

"I wouldn’t expect you to." 

"Eh, that is to say, I have never see the likes of you in this town. Did you just move to Primp recently.."

"Something like that, yeah. Sure."

"I just was certain after some time that I had gotten to know most of this town’s residents well. Or, well enough so I can call out just about everyone here by name."

"And _you_ came here when? Sorry, you’re not exactly jogging my memory here either."

"Close to half a year ago."

"..."

"What? What’s with this look you’re giving me?"

"Oh- what? Nothing. There’s no look."

"Yes, there is. Just what exactly are you trying to hide from me, y- ah.. You!"

"Ah, much as I want to, I’m not going so far as to give you my name yet, sorry. But you do look a little familiar, if that’s what you wanted to hear."

"I do? How come?"

"There was a group from another world that came here, and around that time too. For sure one of them was - Arle? If I’m not mistaken? I uhh.. just got here. So I don’t know too much about them let alone everything in Primp."

" _Her._ "

"So you two are close then? I was going to say you were that pervert she makes fun of behind their back but I’m not seeing any innuendos out of you so far."

"I am no such pervert!"

"You’re getting better I guess."

"And hey, so, I’m right! You’re that dark mage from the other world like her, right? You remind-"

"I have a name but fine, yes."

"Care to give it to me then?"

"Eh- keep talking.. I cut you off when you.. What were you saying, that someone reminds you of me?"

"Uh, yeah, that you remind me of someone actually. They’re a practitioner of the dark arts too. Though it isn’t my field of expertise, I’m there to help out when they need it.."

"Well, you should tell them messing with this branch of magic has its consequences if they’re not careful."

"And you’re saying you don’t?"

"It’s general advice. I’m just saying this isn’t something to be taken lightly."

"Ok."

"You k-"

"It’s-"

"Oh, sorry, go ahead."

"Ah.."

"No, you look like you have more to get off your chest, it’s fine."

"If you insist.. I would like to say - and maybe you can sympathize with this - but long ago, I had an insatiable thirst for power. Granted, I’m trying to fight it now. It’s a bad habit-"

"Yeah. Yeah, I get it."

"And, ah, but at first I acted nothing of the sort. I in fact wanted nothing to do with the dark arts. It was only something I fell back on as a means to escape that cursed labyrinth. And right before I could leave I met the Runelord himself." 

"Mm." 

"At first I was scared, and rightfully so. But after defeating him I didn’t see his backlit, towering figure as intimidating, or - I mean - not in the same way. I liked it. And I remember at that point, walking out.. Whether some part of me wanted to stop it or not, I was losing myself. And I wanted to replace him, standing there in front of the fire, like somebody owes me something. Like I can do everything I want and smile like that - like I knew I was filthy rich but I’ve sunk too far into the security of it that it doesn’t matter who it changes me into. But I don’t want everything. I was just at the wrong time and place. Now I have to suffer the consequences of it for much longer than necessary. So.."

"Um, sorry! I went off on a tangent there, didn’t I?"

"I hate that I know what that feels like."

"Huh?"

"So, now you’re at a point where you’re just picking up after yourself, right? Like you lost touch with yourself for so long: don’t remember what you used to do, what you liked, how you didn’t used to carry a cold indifference when someone calls your name. Or, the one people are sticking to you nowadays."

"You- you’re really on to something there."

"Unfair circumstances. Um- your shoes.."

"Ah, right, my bad."

"If it isn’t too much of a bother, do you mind telling me.."

"What’s the deal with me? Sure. I just- I should make an exception."

"What is it?"

"This was just recently that I eh- _moved_ here so I don’t want to go into too much detail. I’m still a little sensitive bringing it up. Don’t want to salt the wound, or however that expression goes-"

"I ‘get it’. Okay. Go ahead."

"First off, how well do you take to demons?"

"Are you saying you are of such-"

"I didn’t say anything."

"Well, I don’t particularly enjoy dealing with them. They are a mixed bag. But the ones that are hostile in nature tend to work as my equal in battle. If it weren’t for my deep ties to dark magic I wouldn’t have a chance going up against the likes of them."

"So you met both, uh, ‘good and bad’ demons, before?"

"If memory serves me right, yes. Which reminds me, I should be writing down my encounters more often. If you want me to go into detail I’m afraid I don’t have much to go off of. Only one demon in particular - but you shouldn’t get me started on him. I’ll give us the benefit of the doubt and say we have places to be soon. Better things to do, hah."

"Ah, well. Fine. I think the party’s dying down anyway. How long was it supposed to go on for?"

"Are parties ever scheduled to stop?"

"I guess you have a point."

"Hey, does that clock around your neck really work?"

"Yes, always."

"…" 

"Do you have to be somewhere now?"

"Mhm. And I’ll be just in time, actually. Thank you."

"Yeah. Oh, hold on."

"Ah, sorry, I hate to leave the conversation unfinished like this but I do have to go. Someone’s ‘expecting’ me. Maybe we can meet when everyone gets together like this again? Or, no, that would be far too long up until that point. Eh.."

"Can I get your number?"

"My.. ah, I don’t think caves have good service. We can maybe see each other later in the town square? Later this week? My apologies, I’m not used to setting up things like this."

"No, it’s fine. What can you do? I know I can be there this Wednesday the earliest."

"Wednesday, at 3?"

"That works."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Schezo and Aya good dynamic question mark thank you


End file.
